The Shift Is Already Happening. Three Prompts to Show You Where You Are.
You didn't miss it. You might already be in it.
This is the Friday reflection episode — the one where we slow down and go inside. On Tuesday, I introduced three markers: three ways the shift shows up in women who are changing, not in what they say but in what they do. Today, you find yourself inside them. Three prompts, one for each marker. Your only job is to sit with each one long enough to feel something honest. No optimizing. No fixing. Just noticing.
WHAT YOU'LL HEAR Why the explanation you add before asking for something tells you more than the ask itself. The difference between a decision made from fear and one made from desire — and how to see which one was in the driver's seat. What it means to notice you're going quiet and come back faster than you used to. Why showing up for this episode today is already the return.
LINKS Take the Permission Audit — find out which layer of the Permission Trap is running your life: joishift.co/audit
Book a Clarity Call — 30 minutes, no pitch: calendly.com/kileysuarez/clarity-session-kiley
Download the 5% Worksheet: joy-shift-5percent.lovable.app
Full show notes: kileysuarez.com
ABOUT KILEY I'm Kiley Suarez — certified life coach, host of The Joy Shift, and the woman who ran her husband's medical practice for years before she decided her life was also allowed to be hers.
The Joy Shift is for women in midlife who built the life they were supposed to want — and feel the quiet, persistent gap of 'is this all there is?' You don't have to blow up your life to change it. You just have to start making different choices. Small ones. Ones that say: this is changing.
SUBSCRIBE New episodes every Tuesday and Friday at 6am.
And if you haven't yet, take two seconds and hit the Follow button right here so you never miss an episode. It means the world to me, truly.
Whether you found this show on your own or someone who loves you sent it your way, welcome to The Joy Shift podcast family. This episode is not just for you. Please share it with every woman in your life who is successful on paper but still searching for something more. It could change everything for her.
It is such an honor to do this work alongside you. And please note: I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.
coming back to yourself, feeling stuck, women and self-worth, clarity for women, personal growth podcast, fear vs desire, midlife reinvention, self abandonment, emotional healing for women, finding yourself again, mindset for women, confidence after burnout, personal transformation, women’s empowerment podcast
CTA
If something surfaced during today’s episode and you want support sorting through it, book a Clarity Call using the link in the show notes. And if one of the three markers hit home for you, send Kiley a message on Instagram — she reads every one.
Transcripts
Speaker A:
Hey, welcome to Friday. Before we do anything, let's just take a breath together. Not a performance breath, a real one.
The kind that reaches the bottom of your lungs and reminds your body that you are allowed to slow down. So go ahead. I'll wait. Good. Okay. On Tuesday, I told you about a woman named Valentina.
A woman who came to me stuck on a dissertation she had been working on for four years, who was in the middle of a big life transition and who's somewhere between three. Finishing that dissertation and planning her next move, stopped apologizing for wanting things.
And I introduced you to something I've been noticing across the women I work with. Three markers, three ways the shift shows up. Not in what a woman says, in what she does. If you do not hear Tuesday's episode, that's okay.
You do not need it for what we're doing today. But if you want to come back to it, it's episode 35. Today, it's about learning those markers. Today is about finding yourself inside them.
I promised you three prompts, one for each marker, and I want to be clear about what these are and what they are not. These are not journaling exercises. They are not things to optimize.
They are three quiet questions, and your only job is to sit with each one long enough to feel something honest. Show up. You can write if you want. You can just listen either way, give yourself a few minutes with each. Each one before you move to the next.
No urgency, no fixing, just noticing. Here's the first one. The first way the shift shows up is when a woman stops explaining her wants before she allows herself to have them.
She says, I want this without following it up with but I know it's a lot, or I don't want to be selfish. So here is the prompt. Think about the last time you wanted something now. Not something small, something that mattered.
Maybe it was a conversation you wanted to have, a decision you wanted to make, a direction you wanted to move in. And ask yourself this. Did you say what you wanted first? Or did you explain why it was okay to want it?
If the explanation came before the want, that is not something to fix. Right now, that is just something to see, because most of us have been doing it so long that we do not even notice the disclaimers there.
It is, invisible, like breathing. So just notice. Where does the explanation live? Is it in your voice? Is it in your posture?
Is it in the way you phrase a request so it sounds like it was someone else's idea? Just see it. That is enough for now. Here is the second one.
The second way the shift shows up is when a woman starts making decisions from desire instead of from fear. When she looks back at a choice she made and realizes it, it came from what she wanted, not from what she was afraid would happen if she didn't.
So here is the prompt. Think about a decision you made recently. It does not have to be big. Maybe it was saying yes to something. Maybe it was saying no.
Maybe it was staying quiet when you could have spoken up and ask yourself this. Was that decision made from something you wanted or from something you were trying to avoid? This is not about getting it right.
Most of our decisions come from fear. That is normal. That is how we survive. The question is not whether fear is driving. The question is whether you noticed it in the passenger seat.
Because the shift is not about eliminating fear. It is about recognizing when fear made the choice for us and deciding next time to let desire have a turn.
So just notice which one was in the driver's seat. That is enough. And here is the last one. And this is the one I want you to stay with the longest.
The third way the shift shows up is when a woman notices she is disappearing and comes back faster when she catches herself going quiet, going small, starting to explain herself again. And she returns not perfectly, but sooner than she used to. So here is the prompt. Think about the last week or the last month.
Was there a moment when you went quiet, when you felt yourself pull back, get smaller, let something go that actually mattered to you? And ask yourself this. How long did it take you to notice? And what brought you back?
Some of you are going to realize you came back fast, that you caught it in a day, maybe two. And if that is you, I want you to see that, because you probably did not give yourself credit for it.
And some of you are going to realize you you have not come back yet, that you are still inside the small version, still quiet and still explaining. And if that is you, I want you to hear this. You are listening to this episode.
You showed up on a Friday to sit with questions most people spend their whole lives avoiding. That is you coming back. This right now is the return. So here is where you are. You have three honest answers. Maybe they they are clear.
Maybe they are messy. Maybe one of them landed harder and the other two felt far away. All of that is right. All of that is information.
The marker that felt furthest away is not a failure. It is a direction. It is the thing the next season of your life is for. And the marker that felt closest that is evidence.
Evidence that you are already in the shift. Even if nobody has told you that yet. I am telling you if something came up today that you want to sit with not alone.
That is what a clarity call is for. One conversation, no pressure. Just two women looking at what is actually happening and what wants to move.
The link to book is in the show notes and if you want to tell me which marker landed, come find me on Instagram. I am Kylie Suarez. The link is in the show notes. Also I read every message. Have a good weekend. Be gentle with whatever came up today.
You do not have to do anything with it yet. You just have to let it be true. I will see you Tuesday. This is the Joy Shift with Kiley Suarez.
